


Beautiful Bright Red Stripper Angel

by gelishan



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Crack, Foggy Is Catnip For Villains, Identity Reveal, Love Confessions, M/M, Truth Serum
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-12 22:40:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29143122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gelishan/pseuds/gelishan
Summary: Whoever truth serumed Foggy put it in his coffee.
Relationships: Matt Murdock/Franklin "Foggy" Nelson
Comments: 32
Kudos: 122





	Beautiful Bright Red Stripper Angel

**Author's Note:**

  * For [94BottlesOfSnapple](https://archiveofourown.org/users/94BottlesOfSnapple/gifts).



> Hey, apparently I _can_ write something short, as long as it's the dumbest thing imaginable.
> 
> Title wholesale lifted from an abandoned [94BottlesOfSnapple](https://archiveofourown.org/users/94BottlesOfSnapple/pseuds/94BottlesOfSnapple) WIP.

“Ughhhh,” Foggy moans fervently around a bite of grilled cheese. “Thank you. Haven’t had time for a lunch break.”

“Anytime,” Matt says, with his usual half-focused effort to shut out the noises Foggy makes when Matt brings him his favorite foods. He’d had to stop bringing in cream-filled donuts altogether.

“I hope you mean that. You don’t know how much I needed this today, you beautiful, bright red stripper angel.” 

Karen, about five feet away, stops short and makes a noise that’s half-confusion, half-guffaw. Karen, who they’re _supposed to be keeping his double life a secret from._ "Uh. Thanks?" Matt says through gritted teeth. "Are you feeling okay?"

“I’m feeling completely average. In all the senses, super and otherwise, although I don’t really have super senses, that would be weird, wouldn’t it, Matt? This is a completely average day, I am a completely average person, even the temperature outside is average. And you, my friend, are the most beautiful, bright red stripper angel I have ever met. Just _stunning_.”

“You’re not… _behaving_ average,” Matt says cautiously.

“I’m not? That’s surprising. Though I don’t think you know what average means, Mr. I can echolocate with my ass cheeks.”

Matt chokes.

“Congratulations. That’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard you say,” Karen says. “Also, what?”

“I know what average means,” Matt protests simultaneously.

“You know the dictionary definition, but you’ve got a skewed idea of what it means, bud. You think someone average would push an old man out of the way of a truck and not get bitter when that popped their peepers out of their skull.”

“Again, not what happened.”

“Really? You keep telling me that, but you never let me look at your eyes up close. Huh.” He pauses for a moment. “I was kind of hoping someone would disagree about me being average, even though I know it’s true, and I’m sad that no one did, which is not the kind of thing I’d usually admit to out loud, is it. I’m starting to feel like this is something to be concerned about, and also I’d really like dessert.”

* * *

Two hours, a visit from Dr. Strange, and a visit from Spider-Man later, they’ve established:

Whoever truth serumed Foggy put it in his coffee. Foggy’s coffee alone, because Matt was a good samaritan who tolerated Karen’s burnt monstrosities, but Foggy bought his at the cafe down the street, downed it before he got to the office, and…

“And got a cup of coffee _for show?_ ” Karen says disbelievingly. “ _Every day?_ That’s valuable caffeine, Foggy! Starving orphans in third world countries pick that!”

“No wonder it tastes so terrible. Bitterness of human suffering. I feel really uncomfortable having told you. Can we be done with this conversation? I want to stay friends with you, and you can be a little scary, like that time with the softball bat. Or that time I gave you a hug in the office and you definitely smelled like blood.”

“What?” Matt says.

“This isn’t about me,” Karen says cagily. “Does anyone else know your traitor coffee routine?”

“Oh, tons of people,” Foggy says. “I’m a social butterfly! No, not a butterfly, butterflies are too small and slow. A social peregrine falcon! I socially dive-bomb people on the regular. But I don’t think anyone hates me enough to put something in my drink.” He considers. “Well, not most people.”

After the softball bat revelation, Matt doesn’t want to ask the question. He really doesn’t. But they need to find out. “Who _would_ hate you enough to put truth serum in your drink?”

“Hmm. It could be pretty much anyone in the Dogs of Hell, they’ve got access to all kinds of felonious drugs, and I know some of them are still mad about the time I went there looking for Smitty, I barely made it out of there alive—”

_“What?”_

“And there are the dudes whose fight I broke up in the ER, though they’re in prison still, no chance of getting out on good behavior for a _while_ , so them getting me truth serum would be tricky. Possibly someone from the Bulgarian Mafia, lots of drug runners there and they were mad enough to throw a brick through my window last month—”

_“WHAT?”_

“And then, of course, there are my exes.”

“You have... exes with access to truth serum?” His head is reeling.

“So many exes,” Foggy says, putting his head in his hands.

* * *

Foggy, it turns out, has dated every supervillain in the Tri-State Area. Literally all of them. The supervillains who stopped in town for a day, the supervillains who died and came back to life. The supervillains who’re older than the cosmos. He’s even dated _Galactus_ . How does that even _work_.

“Also a few superheroes, but I don’t really see She-Hulk as the poisoning my coffee type. Side note, the two of you should hang out, she could teach you the way of basic professionalism.”

Karen’s laughing externally by now, not at all trying to keep the guffaws inside her mouth where they belong.

“Why supervillains, Foggy?”

“Sometimes I just want something a little different, you know? Something to break the pattern of my day to day. And, well, we’ve got a lot of ‘a little different’ around.” He shrugs. “Plus, they’re nice. At first. And incredibly good in bed, _so_ good, I’m sorry, I can see you both making a face but I can’t not talk about it. And a lot of them like… set me up on blind dates with their friends, I hope that’s not offensive, Matt. It’s hard to find someone around here who doesn’t get judgey, and when they find someone, well, word gets around.”

“People _should_ be judgey about releasing aliens over the entirety of Manhattan!”

“That was _one time_ , and you should see his charitable donations. He cares so much about the arts.”

“So does Wilson Fisk.” A horrified thought. “You didn’t date Wilson Fisk, did you?”

“Hell no. Not my type at all,” Foggy says with reassuring amounts of revulsion. “I like ‘em charming and deceptive and superpowered and he is _none_ of those. Plus, you’d never forgive me, and I’d be really sad about that, my beautiful bright red stripper angel.” He considers. “We can rule out Kilgrave, at least. He wouldn’t put anything in my coffee, he _is_ a truth serum if he wants to be.”

They start compiling a list.

* * *

  
  


“We’ve established that Foggy can’t lie right now,” Karen says.

“Right,” Matt says cautiously.

“And he keeps calling you a beautiful bright red stripper angel.”

“Also correct.”

“Why is that, Matt.” It’s too flat to be a question— like she already knows the answer. He answers it anyway.

“I have absolutely no idea,” he says, heart pounding.

“Really?” she says. “You can’t even think up a good lie?”

He stays quiet. It was pretty much inevitable that she’d figure it out. She was a trained investigative journalist, after all, someone who knew how to get the truth out of people who _weren’t_ desperately spewing truths like they had truth norovirus.

“You could trust Foggy enough to tell him about your side gig, but not me?”

He sighs. “He found out, Karen. I didn’t tell him.”

“Oof. That’s… I can understand why you wouldn’t want to share with anyone else for a while after that.”

“Thank you.”

She taps her fingernails on the desk. “Look. I know you want to help the clients who need justice, the ones who can’t afford us, but Matt, we already don’t look like a respectable law firm. If word gets out that you’re a stripper in your free time, we won’t _have_ any clients.”

Matt chokes again.

“First of all, there’s nothing wrong with strippers,” he says, once he’s recovered. “Strippers work hard at an athletic, artistic job that shouldn’t be stigmatized. Second of all... word about this won't get out, because I’m not a stripper.”

“An escort?”

_“Not a sex worker of any kind.”_

“Then explain what Foggy said any other way.”

He stays silent again, and she stalks off, mumbling under her breath, “No one gets that shredded without a reason. No one.”

* * *

Finally, Karen heads over to the Post-Bulletin’s offices— to get access to the _good_ databases, she says. And he’s alone with Foggy.

“I feel weird being alone with you right now,” Foggy says. “There’s a lot of stuff I don’t really want you to ask me because it’s personal, and also because we’ve had a rough time in our relationship, and we’ve just patched it up, and we’ve un-patched it up before and I didn’t like that.”

“I understand,” he says quietly, “But, uhm. I do want to know one thing. Is it okay if I ask?”

Foggy sighs and tugs at his collar. “I guess. I can never say no to your puppy dog face, oh shit,” he says, “are you asking about the stripper angel thing?”

“No,” he says quickly, before Foggy can continue, and Foggy breathes a sigh of relief. “My question is, how could you put yourself in danger like that? The Dogs of Hell, the convicts, the Bulgarians?

“That’s seriously your question, Matt? I almost can’t believe you right now. You put yourself in danger _all the time_. But when I do the same thing, it’s bad? That’s shitty, and I’m hurt by it. I know I can’t beat up enemies, I’m just an average guy, but I want you to at least think I’m competent enough to take risks. I’ve never even gotten hurt, not for real. Worst that ever happened was getting chloroformed and hung upside down at the biker bar.”

“Again, _what_?”

“Nothing’s ever been bad enough for me to go to the hospital except for the things that _you’re_ involved in. Shit, I know that sounds bad, but I really didn’t mean it the way it sounded, and you know I can’t lie about that right now.”

He sighs. “I put myself in danger because you’re a badass, Matt, and I’ve always wanted to be more like you. You’re fearless, and I’m afraid of so much. I want to learn to be less afraid. Except of losing you again, that’s my biggest fear, and I think it’s worth keeping.” 

“It’s mine too, Fogs.” The honesty is contagious. “Losing you again, I mean.”

“I’m really touched if you’re telling the truth. I’m never sure, I can’t read heartbeats like you can. This has got to be pretty normal for you, huh? Knowing when I’m telling the truth.”

“No, this is still pretty unusual.”

Foggy makes a contemplative sound. “Well, if you really are most worried about losing me again, it’s actually less dangerous to be dating a supervillain. They look out for their own. You should be encouraging my misbehavior, Matt.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Why?” He sounds sincerely confused and genuinely interested.

Matt bites back most of the true answers, like _because I thought we were on the side of truth and justice, not the side piece of untruth and injustice_ , or _I’d rather you keep your evenings free for me_. “Because you deserve better,” he says, hoping that won’t be too revelatory. “You keep saying that you’re average, Fogs. You’re not. You’re extraordinary. I’ve never known anyone like you.”

“Yeah, well.” Foggy’s voice is a little bitter. “That’s sweet of you, but only one of us has a truth whammy on us, buddy.”

* * *

Karen returns from the Post-Bulletin with a rustling sheaf of paper.

“Okay,” she says, heart beating excitedly, “I’ve managed to narrow the field.”

“Thank you, Karen. What did you find out?”

“That there are three different strip clubs in Manhattan who contract with a stripper who’s blind.” Her voice is cheerful. “Mind narrowing down the neighborhood?”

_“I’m not a stripper._ Why? Why is _this_ your focus? We still haven’t found out who slipped truth serum in Foggy’s coffee!”

“Serves him right for wasting caffeine like that, and spoken like someone who’s afraid of what I’ll find. Is it about the money, Matt? We’re not _that_ short on money.”

“It’s not about the money!” he says, and adds, “ _because I’m not a stripper._ ”

* * *

They start knocking on doors.

* * *

  
  


“We are Venom,” the… amorphous thing intones harshly. “We will devour your intestines, we will twist your spine into a corkscrew and use it to unlock the secrets of the city.”

“Yeah. Gotcha, buddy. But did you put anything in my coffee?”

Venom makes a protesting noise. “We would never harm Foggy!”

“Cool. That’s all I really needed to know— sorry to bother you, pal.”

Venom hesitates, seeming unusually vulnerable through its far too many teeth. “We are free on Saturday if you are. We would savor reconnecting with you. ”

“This is usually where I’d say I have plans, but I don’t have specific plans. I just don’t want to date you anymore. Shit, man, that’s harsh, I’m sorry.”

Venom makes a pained noise. “We would prefer to know the truth.”

“You’re a good guy, Venom. Parasite. Keep being you and whoever else you want to be.”

* * *

“Not you either, huh. Sorry to have bugged you, pal.” 

Ikari moves a step closer, and Matt drops into an instinctive defensive posture. “I do not wish Mr. Murdock to know the when. But tell me whether your Saturday is free.” He tilts his head. “I can hear your heart pounding.”

“Yeah, because I don’t really want to say this. But I’ve been truth-whammied, you know the deal. Sorry, Ikari, it’s over between us.”

“You know how to stab my heart, Foggy,” he says morosely.

“ _Ikari_?” Matt says, once they’ve gotten out the door. “He worked for Fisk! He kidnapped you!”

“Yeah, that's how we met, actually.” Foggy’s voice is dreamy. “We really hit it off.”

“Tell me he was at least a one-night stand.”

“No, that one lasted a while. And yes, Matt, I did feel very guilty about it, the whole time. But he’s more my type than any of the other ones I dated.” His voice is soft. “It just wasn’t quite right.”

* * *

“Deadpool’s not a villain,” Karen says confusedly, and adds, “exactly.”

“Hey!” Wade says. “I should at least get a participation trophy.”

“ _I_ should’ve thought this through,” Foggy says. “Poison isn’t really his thing. He likes to be…”

“Hands-on,” Wade says, wiggling his eyebrows loud enough that Matt can _hear_ them. “Speaking of, got any plans on Saturday?”

“Yes,” Matt says curtly, before Foggy can say a word, and tugs him away.

* * *

In the end, anticlimactically, the culprit comes to them in their office, while Matt and Foggy are in the middle of research and Karen is in the middle of calling strip clubs.

“Vicky! It’s been forever! So good to see you.” Foggy sounds far happier than he should to see a… is Matt’s radar malfunctioning? a metal skeleton in a cloak.

Dr. Doom shifts uncomfortably. “Please. I prefer Victor in public.”

“Sorry, Vic— Victor.” He sounds crestfallen.

Apparently Matt’s not the only one with no immunity to crestfallen Foggy. Dr. Doom sighs. “I will also accept Vic,” he says wearily.

“Thanks, Vic!” Foggy brightens. “You’re the best. I’m sorry, I’ve taken a truth potion and I can’t stop there. You’re not the very best, there’s Matty and Karen and Patrick Stewart, but I want you to feel like you’re the best because you’re very good and also because I don’t want you to hurt my friends. ”

“Ah, yes.” He straightens. “That is why I am here.”

“To hurt my friends? I thought we were past that.”

“No, no. I have no quarrel with friends this time. I am just here to talk.”

Foggy crosses his arms. “You mean you put truth serum in my coffee _again_? I crossed you off the list because I didn’t think you were the type of person to do the same thing twice, Vic!”

“You crossed people off the list _because they’d done it before_?” Matt says.

“Only the creative ones!”

“Thank you for your kind words, Foggy.”

“Vic has invented such cool stuff, Matt, you don’t even know. Mechanical armies that allow for the less-bloody overthrow of entire countries! He’s saved so many lives. So you can see why I didn’t expect him to reuse an old gimmick.” Foggy sounds reproachful.

Dr. Doom… winces. “Yes, well. Love sends us all to foolish extremes.” He takes a deep breath. “Is there a chance for us still, light of my stars? You told me yes, but I think you were, as the saying goes, trying not to hurt my feelings.”

“You’re right,” he says, and winces. “I hate that you made me admit that. I don’t like being mean to people, especially not my exes.”

“Sometimes, it is kinder to be truthful.”

“You say that, but the people I date, if I don’t let them down easy, they tend to let me down easy into a vat of acid.”

“That is just how breakups go.” Dr. Doom sounds puzzled. 

“Maybe for you! But I’m just an average dude, very average, I can’t defend myself like you, and my beautiful bright red stripper angel can’t show up and save me every time. Being polite and friendly is important. I’m already expecting to have to fend off a few more kidnappings this month.” He taps his lip contemplatively. “Though Wade will probably help out if I offer him sexual favors again.”

“Your… stripper… angel?” Dr. Doom says while Matt tries not to choke yet again. “Are they your new date?”

“Thank you for not assuming a gender, Vic, especially given the range of your buddies I’ve been with, God, am I slut-shaming myself? I might be slut-shaming myself. But no, I have no boyfriend or girlfriend or enbyfriend or anyone else. Single as they come.”

“Then why? Why is there no chance for us, my cherished one?”

“Matt, of course,” and Matt jerks upright. “You think I stick around someone for over a decade, quit my very well-paying law job for them, forgive them for keeping some _very_ hurtful secrets from me, forgive them for ruining all of our best cases with bad judgment, you know, I can see why you’d be confused, my dude, a lot of these sound like me tolerating Matty rather than making him my top priority. And he is. All the time. I’m not sure he knows it, I’m not sure he’d want to know it, but he really is.”

Dr. Doom sounds suspicious. “You say you are dating no one, but you are speaking words of love.”

“Well, _duh_ I am,” he says irritatedly. “How could you not, dude? He’s like the smartest dude I know, his thing is _justice justice justice_ all the time and he has some fucked up ideas about it, but I’ve never met anyone who adheres so well to his own moral code. Not even you, Vic. You know I have a thing for a man with secrets. Plus he’s so hot you could fry an egg on his abs, and I’m not even counting how amazing he looks at night when he goes out in that getup, I make fun of the stupid fetish costume but it does _not_ leave much to the imaginat _mmmmmmph”_

Matt can’t hear the rest of his sentence, but he can feel the vibrations of it through his tongue. Foggy is still trying to make irritated, objectifying commentary at Victor Von Doom into his mouth, but he keeps interrupting it to swipe his tongue against Matt’s, a clumsy but very, very interested kiss.

Foggy breaks away first. “I am really surprised you did that just now. Did you do that just to shut me up? I’d be hurt if you did that just to shut me up. God, I hate how pathetic I sound right now.”

“I didn’t,” he says. “The, uh, feeling is mutual. I meant it when I said you’ve never been average to me, Fogs, not at all. I just never thought you’d be interested.”

Foggy crosses his arms suspiciously. “Hey, Vic. Got any more truth serum?”

_“No!”_ All three of them yell.

“Some things you’ve just got to take on faith,” Matt says quietly. “I hope that this can be one of them.”

And finally, the faintest hint of a smile appears. “You’re so Catholic, dude,” he says fondly. “Let’s table this conversation for now, and by conversation I mean your mouth making sounds with my mouth, I definitely want to revisit that in depth, for the love of God, Victor, how do I get this to stop? Do you really want to hear me devolve into dirty talk about another man, because you know that’s where this is going.”

To Matt’s horror, Von Doom seems to be seriously considering the question.

“C’mon, dude, let me go. I know you’re a man of honor— you got what you were looking for.”

He makes a grumpy noise. But he tosses over a vial of antidote. “Just two drops,” he warns.

“Thanks, Vic,” Foggy says warmly. “It’s been so good to see you. Let’s get coffee sometime.”

* * *

“So are the two of you dating now?” Karen says into the awkward silence, once the metal skeleton is out of the office.

“Matt?”

“Not sure,” he says. “How can I compete with an army of supervillains?” It’s a joke, but it comes out more seriously than he intends.

“Hey. I dated all of them, but I wasn’t _serious_ about them. If you wanna date, I’m game.”

“Yeah?” He can’t stop the grin from cracking over his face like an egg, the egg that Foggy thinks would fry in the face of his hotness. 

“Yeah, buddy,” Foggy says, twining his fingers with Matt’s.

“Does this mean he’s making an honest man of you? You’re going to quit your stripper gig?”

Matt snaps. “For the love of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Karen, I’m _not a stripper._ I’m _Daredevil._ ”

The room is silent but for the humming of the lights and the cranky wrenching of the fax machine.

She puts both hands on her hips, pencil skirt creaking stiff and disapproving. “ _That’s_ what you were talking about?” she says crossly. “Everyone knows _that_.”


End file.
